A very sad day

Do you get days when everything goes wrong? Today was one of these for me.

A few weeks ago I suggested, after a long 5 day outage, that the RSGB LF-reflector migrated to a Yahoo Group. In my experience Yahoo groups are great: messages, files and photo storage and a great way to share and archive information with others of like mind. In over 15 years I have rarely had problems with any of the groups to which I belong.

After a few weeks, the group leader G3WKL decided to make the move to a Yahoo group having "taken the temperature" of the original group members. Then the "fun" began: a few people objected and started a flame war and I was centre stage of the hate, in particular from one particularly nasty and forthright individual. I could name him but will not stoop so low.

My intentions were good: I wanted to let people know that all they did with the original Blacksheep mailing list could still be done, but so much more too. Things like archiving of messages, 100GB of both file and photo storage etc.

The resulting avalanche of nasty and ill-informed posts, many of which were directed at me, has frankly sickened me. My faith in the hobby has been shattered by the bad feeling and unkindness of a few ill-informed individuals.

Amateur radio is usually a friendly and helpful community but in the last few days I have seen an altogether different and darker side of it, one which shames the community.

To be honest, I have never been nearer to throwing in the towel and taking up another hobby. This is indeed a very sad day.